Mr. President’s declaration on Ekiti rerun is not convincing enough

It is regrettable that the recent declaration by President Yar’Adua to bring the culprits of Ekiti rerun election pogrom to book would remain in the realm of rhetoric and the usual Presidential hollow ritual.

Without a dressed probe by the President, we all know who had laid siege on the State, months before the April 25, 2009 election.

We had submitted to the authorities the tape of how one of the south west irredentist PDP governors pledged fake army uniforms and arms in a parley with Ekiti Council helmsmen.

Mr. Ayo Arise, one of the President’s party men in the Senate had been reputed to be the godfather of thugs in Ekiti. He was apprehended in the midst of his roughnecks who were in possession of arms and charms. Another of the PDP Senators was caught with thugs and arms harboured in his private cocoon. These compromised Senators and their army of miscreants were released without reprimand.

We expected the President to show his avowed concern for electoral sanity and his love for peace by prosecuting thuggery kingpins who had been visitors to security agents during the rerun election.
A probe panel does not need to show the way to prosecute a Governor who was allegedly on tape while plotting carnage on Ekiti State. We believe the President is using this latest stance as a lullaby to rock the people of Ekiti into silence while awaiting an elusive justice.

Ekiti people know that Iyiola Omisore and Ebenezer Babatope turned Ekiti government house into a barrack of thugs and Isiaka Adeleke took over Ekiti INEC office like a swam of locusts.

The President’s men and women stood like pillars of anguish against Ekiti in Abuja. The office of the Vice-President and House Speaker who came with the President to Ekiti to promise hell with soldiers became alternate INEC offices to oil the rigging machine which allocated victory to Mr. Segun Oni.

Mrs. Dora Akunyili, whose erudition had been contaminated by the PDP virus and the rebrand Director General, rebranded peace for chaos in Ekiti and packaged falsehood for the President.
We insist that a judicial panel of enquiry be set up to probe Ekiti electoral holocaust and such must sit in Ekiti so that Ekiti people could bare their minds since it is certain that when truth reaches Abuja , it could be rebranded into falsehood.

All the security agents that had hands in the rerun election should appear before such panel instead of rebranding them into judges in cases where they too are suspects.

Ekiti needs no crocodile tears to heal the wounds inflicted on her by PDP but the President must show the world that the injustice done Ekiti and the injuries on Nigeria’s democracy would not be treated in the fashion of PDP’s family affairs.

Yemi Adaramodu
Director of Communications
Kayode Fayemi Campaign Organisation
May 14, 2009